AIRCRAFT SYSTEM SURVIVABILITY

Tencate Advanced armour Aircraft survivability systems

In protecting aircraft, every kilogram of weight matters, due to the potential degradation to performance and reduction in payload. Aircraft survivability systems from TenCate Advanced Armour are designed to provide maximum protection with only a minimum of weight added.

TenCate Advanced Armour holds a broad experience in aerospace composite solutions. These protection solutions have been designed for OEM and retrofit applications and have been approved in accordance with civilian and military aerospace regulations regarding environmental properties, stress, reliability and safety requirements.

TenCate Advanced Armour designs ballistic protection panels ‘built to print’ and ‘built to spec’ with high dimensional accuracy and quick-fix interfaces to ensure easy and fast installation and de-installation with low maintenance which offers a reduced whole life cost solution.

The ballistic protection is developed and manufactured in a dedicated aerospace EN9100 certified and NATO security cleared production site. TenCate Advanced Armour provides whole life support for the ballistic protection solutions using a professional Integrated Logistic Support organization worldwide.

SEAT SHELLS

Ballistic seat shells for helicopter seats

TenCate Advanced Armour can develop and provide ballistic seat shells for helicopter seats. The seats shells provide a vital barrier against ballistic threats while having no significant impact on pilot mobility.

Seat shells represent an easy and affordable upgrade to any aircraft operating in contested space. The seat shells are lightweight and easily installed in the original architecture.

The edges of the seat shells fold down to enable pilots to escape in case of fire, while providing excellent coverage against projectiles and fragmentation while seated.

BALLISTIC PANELS

Lightweight ballistic panels

TenCate Advanced Armour provides fiber panels in complex shapes to provide a ballistic barrier to helicopter cockpits. The panels are made to fit the particular aircraft without interfering with onboard equipment. The panels are available in different protection levels and are certified to use in aircraft.

TenCate Advanced Armour works with different aircraft OEMs to manufacture panels ready for installation in aircraft structures. Panels can also be developed for retro-fit applications in original structures.

The panels are light in weight and will have no significant effect on aircraft performance.

Thanks to its engineering capabilities, TenCate Advanced Armour can shape the panels in complex shapes to decrease the use of material while at the same time limiting ballistic gaps.

The modular floors are developed to accommodate native installations in the aircraft structure such as mounting structures for equipment. TenCate Advanced Armour can also provide panels that cover the lower sides to decrease exposure to projectiles from the ground. Several mounting techniques can be used to secure the panels in the upright position, incl. non-invasive solutions.

TenCate Advanced Armour can provide flooring solutions for a wide array of aircraft and can be provided as a retro-fit application as part of a survivability upgrade.

TenCate Advanced Armour flooring solutions are available in a range of different protection levels and are certified in accordance with military and aerospace industry standards.

FACING IEDS: TENCATE ABDS™

TenCate ABDS™ is a family of blast protection technologies designed to detect, measure, process, record and respond in the event of a mine or IED blast

Scalable solution with retro-fit capabilities

The IED, or Improvised Explosive Device, is by no means a revolutionary addition to the battlefield. IEDs have been present and formidable in every conflict since 1939 and are considered a weapon of choice for non-state actors in asymmetric warfare. World War II witnessed the partisan and resistance forces across Europe successfully and effectively employing these homemade bombs against occupying forces.

In the 21st Century, military and civilian populations alike have been terrorized by the IED threat in the Middle East, South America and around the globe. Many of these rudimentary weapons are cobbled together munitions made of fertilizer and diesel fuel and triggered by cell phones or garage door remote openers.

The past decade has witnessed the evolution of manufacturing IEDs into a practiced vocationthanks to the mass proliferation of available information on IED technology, materials and expertise. This situation, combined with large infusions of funding from politically motivatedstate and non-state actors, have made the IED commonplace on the modern battlefield. Thisis no truer than when you look at Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom over thelast decade. During the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, IEDs accounted for over 60% ofcoalition casualties.

As IEDs have proliferated, so have the layers of passive armor added to the underside of military platforms. While force protection was enhanced, slower speeds, lower payloads, reduced mobility and minimized off road capability were just some of the tradeoffs from the heavier armor kits and vehicles. TenCate acknowledged this paradox and endeavored to develop an underbody blast threat protection solution that is only heavy when it needs to be.

TenCate ABDSTM

TenCate ABDS™ is a family of blast protection technologies designed to detect, measure, process, record and respond in the event of a mine or IED blast. In its standard configuration, the ABDS Sentinel X™ system includes a user interface, computer processor, sensor suite, armored cabling and a quartet of externally mounted counter measures. Operation is simple.

TenCate ABDS™ is manually initiated from inside the vehicle at the start of a patrol. The system then operates autonomously to detect and protect the vehicle and crew throughout the mission. The TenCate ABDS Sentinel X™ system is scalable to various platforms and threats, suitable for new and deployed vehicles, easy to install and remove and simple to train on and operate.

TENCATE ABDS™: HOW IT FUNCTIONS

ABDS Sentinel X™ system relies on the proper application of physics combined with the speed of detection and advanced computing

Using physics to neutralize force

At its core, the ABDS Sentinel X™ system relies on the proper application of physics combined with the speed of detection and advanced computing. The key is that, when triggered by a mine blast event, the system causes a vehicle to momentarily appear significantly heavier than its actual weight. As a result, todays stronger and more rupture resistant military platforms can be made capable of weathering a mine blast as effectively as a vehicle at many times the weight, yet do so without routinely carrying the parasitic weight of additional armor.

In the simplest of terms, TenCate ABDS™ works by utilizing a tremendous downward force to oppose the enormous upward forces created by a mine blast. A speedy response is obviously important but even more critical is the timing. The reaction window is miniscule and theupward vehicle momentum must be curtailed before the inherent impulse energy can affectthe vehicle occupants. The benefits can be directly measured as lower launch velocity, jump height and slam down of the targeted vehicle. Most importantly, the system reduces the amount of blast impulse energy transferred directly into the occupants. The human body can withstand an impressive amount of G-force loading but mine blasts typically exceed human limits. Trauma to the brain, spinal and lumbar regions are common killers during blast events but TenCate ABDS Sentinel X™ mitigates blast impulse to a level that humans can endure.

Countermeasures

If the processor is the brains of the system then the countermeasures are the muscle. The countermeasures propel a carefully timed mass vertically in order to create a downward force via recoil. The recoil temporarily makes the vehicle extraordinarily heavy to oppose the upward forces produced by the blast. The militarized, compact, lightweight and low power consuming countermeasures are externally mounted on structural strong points and are capable of producing over 1 million pounds of downward force to reduce blast related injuries and save lives. In concert with the processor, the countermeasures can be both stagger-fired and triggered independently of one another in order to address a threat efficiently.

Complex triggering algorithms running in the processor determine when, where and for how long the countermeasures are directed to release energy. The objective is to make the event survivable for the crew. Full scale live fire blast testing has repeatedly demonstrated that reduced damage to the vehicle and all of the on-board electronic systems can be achieved as well.

This technology is available today to help save the lives of mounted soldiers and reduce debilitating long term injuries. This includes, but is not limited to severe spinal compression, incapacitating lower back and lumbar trauma and traumatic brain injury (TBI).

TenCate ABDS™

works by utilizing a tremendous downward force to oppose the enormous upward forces created by a mine blast

TENCATE ABDS™ VALUE PROPOSITION

ABDS is compact, lightweight and has extremely low power draw. The system can be retrofitted or installed on new vehicles

available and functional solution to IED threat

TenCate is currently in the test and evaluation process with a number of countries on varioustypes of platforms. ABDS Sentinel X™ is not platform specific nor is it limited to a family of vehicles. ABDS has applications for combat, tactical, wheeled and tracked platforms. In today’s fleet, near term optimal employment would be on blast-resistant vehicles that are lightweight and prone to flight during a blast event.

Today, evaluation continues under a U.S. ARMY RDECOM command-wide CRADA and has successfully validated its capability to manage mine blast impulse. Individual platform evaluations naturally follow the technology validation phase in order to identify the human survivability and integration metrics and define the platform by platform TenCate ABDS™ value proposition. This value proposition is the traditional equation that faces all program managers who must weigh performance gains, in this case, enhanced human survivability, against trade-offs for space, weight, power and cost.

Value proposition is an important feature of TenCate’s ABDS Sentinel X™. From the start, the system was designed to serve the requirements of the end user in the most efficient possible way. In terms of trades, ABDS is compact, lightweight and has extremely low power draw. The system can be retrofitted or installed on new vehicles. It is scalable, meaning that it can easily address evolving threats, and can be quickly mounted or dismounted to suit the mission. Ease of training, operation and low maintenance is exemplified by a contemporary plug and play LRU (Line Replaceable Unit) design and intuitive built in automatic diagnostics.

The same components (sensors, processor and countermeasures) that make active blast threatprotection possible can also be configured and employed to combat the all too common problemof vehicle rollover; protect high sensitivity or high value cargo; measure, record and report blastimpulse energy or control and command trigger survivability sub-systems such as air-bags andseat belt pre-tensioners.

TenCate ABDS™

is compact, lightweight and has extremely low power draw. The system can be retrofitted or installed on new vehicles.

PROTECTION FOR SMALLCRAFT

LIGHTWEIGHT PROTECTION SOLUTIONS FOR SMALLCRAFT

PROTECTION FOR RHIBS AND SMALLCRAFT

TenCate Advanced Armour is a global supplier of survivability solutions for smallcraft and RHIBs from the rivers of South America over cold North Atlantic waters to Southeast Asian coastal waters. Lightweight protection solutions from TenCate Advanced Armour have been protecting law enforcement and military units against traffickers, pirates, and military threats for more than a decade.

Smallcraft protection solutions from TenCate Advanced Armour employ lightweight fiber materials to facilitate the mobility and maneuverability of the vessels. Survivability solutions from TenCate Advanced Armour are developed with vessel center-of-gravity in mind as to decrease any impact on vessel performance. Material weight is the key in this equation and thanks to TenCate Advanced Armour's wide experience in composite material application in areas such as aerospace and personal protection, TenCate Advanced Armour can provide composite panels that complies with or exceeds NATO standards.

TenCate Advanced Armour also employs innovative techniques to decrease the amount of material needed to provide most ballistic coverage by using complex shaped components. These components can replace several components that fit together in a corner and thus decrease ballistic gap as well as weight for the complete structure.

Versatile protection

Protection solutions from TenCate Advanced Armor consist of rubberized aramid, high-performance polyethylene, ceramics and special metals. These materials play a vital part in the high multi-hit capability of this system, resulting in an exceptional degree of protection. TenCate Advanced Armor can also provide a special coating that negates the degradation of the anti-ballistic panels and components after exposure to saltwater, fluids, acids, and other corrosive substances. The coating also protects the panels and components against shocks and vibration.

Liner solutions

Lightweight liners with ballistic protection

The liner is mounted internally and provides protection against projectiles and fragmentation in accordance with international standards. The internal structure means that ballistic protection can be sustained without impairing the civilian appearance or the vessels structural capabilities. The position of the liner solution also means that it is less exposed to degradation from the salt water environment which is otherwise an issue for ballistic panels without the correct resistant coatings.

Liner solutions from TenCate Advanced Armour are available for a wide array of platforms and can be retro-fitted easily into existing structures. The liner solutions are light in weight and have minimum impact on vessel performance.

RESISTANT COATINGS

TENCATE ROSISTTM COATING

TenCate Advanced Armour can provide an UV and saltwater resistant coating for marine and naval applications that significantly increases the longevity of ballistic performance for exposed panels by providing a critical barrier.

TenCate RosistTM is a protective coating with extensive adhesive capabilities and excellent coverage. The TenCate RosistTM treatmentseals the surface and prevents damaging chemicals, salt water, and UV-light from penetrating.

TenCate RosistTM can be mixed with rubber granulates to provide a non-slippery surface for decks and roofs where crew needs to operate. The coating contains the rubber granulates with little to none degradation over time. TenCate RosistTM is also available with a smooth surface. TenCate RosistTM coatings can applied with paint directly to enable easy maintenance.